How to be a hacker

A intro to the command line for grad students

Jim Rose

Nov 30 2022

Let’s take a second to appreciate the view

So far this semester (whether you realize it or not) you’ve learned THREE DIFFERENT data analysis languages

Unix is the programming language that underpins the operating system of any computer running either macOS or linux.

Somewhat synomymous terms:

To interact more directly with your computer
- Or to work with remote servers
To work with LARGE files (i.e. genetic sequencing data)
- If it fits on your computer you can manipulate it with unix
- In R you are limited by what you can load into RAM memory

Command	Example	Detail
ls	`ls`	Shows contents of current working directory
cd	`cd ..` `cd /PATH/folder/subfolder`	Change directory
pwd	`pwd`	Print current directory

Command	Example	Detail
touch	`touch filename.txt`	Creates a file called “filename”
mkdir	`mkdir subfolder` `mkdir subfolder1 subfolder2`	Create folders
mv	`mv oldname.txt newname.txt`	Rename a file
cp	`cp file.txt PATH`	Copies a file to the new PATH location
rm	`rm file.txt`	Deletes a file

Command	Example	Detail
cat	`cat file.txt`	Prints contents of file to terminal
wc	`wc file.txt` `wc -l file.txt`	Counts number of lines words and characters. -l option only gives number of lines
head	`head file.txt`	Shows first few lines of file
nano	`nano file.txt`	Opens text editor program
less	`less file.txt`	Another text editor program